{"id":9979,"date":"2014-08-19T15:04:09","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T07:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/?p=9979"},"modified":"2014-08-19T15:20:28","modified_gmt":"2014-08-19T07:20:28","slug":"restoring-public-confidence-after-the-selangor-mb-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/restoring-public-confidence-after-the-selangor-mb-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Restoring public confidence after the Selangor MB crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Lim Kit Siang<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the \u00a0three temple functions I attended\u00a0 in Lima Kedai and \u00a0Taman Sri Skudai in Gelang Patah last night, members of the public showed great and \u00a0keen interest and concern about political developments in the country, especially about the future of Pakatan Rakyat as a result of the prolonged Selangor Mentri Besar crisis.<\/p>\n

Undoubtedly, like Malaysians all over the country, the people of Gelang Patah had been following closely with great concern the worst crisis faced by Pakatan Rakyat in its six-year history, and by last Saturday, uppermost in the minds of many would be the question whether there would continue to be a Pakatan Rakyat in the next 24 hours, a question nobody could answer with any confidence.<\/p>\n

The Selangor MB\u00a0 crisis had been the despair of many Malaysians.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, I receive an email from veteran Malaysian politician, Dr. Goh Cheng Teik, who wrote:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am sick. I had to struggle to compose my thoughts. Forgive my bad English.<\/p>\n

\"wan<\/a>\u201cI have been looking at the newspaper reports about Selangor. Selangor is a democracy. Its legislative assembly have been properly elected.\u00a0 Whoever commands a majority in the house of Selangor should lead the government as Mentri Besar. The political boardroom works on the same principle as the corporate boardroom. If a person can obtain more than 51% of the shares in a company, he rules. Khalid knows this well enough. If he is a gentleman he should gracefully withdraw.<\/p>\n

\u201cWan Azizah is a capable person.\u00a0If she becomes Menteri Besar, she will surprise everybody with what she can do. \u00a0As the wife of a very controversial opposition leader, she has over the years learnt much more about politics from real life than those who learn politics from books.\u00a0 She is a trained medical doctor.\u00a0 Tun Dr. Ismail was a doctor and he proved to be a good political leader.\u00a0 So were Dr. Lim Chong Eu and Dr. Tan Chee Khoon.<\/p>\n

By last night, the public sentiments and feelings in the three temple dinners in Gelang Patah \u2013 which should be a fair reflection of the national mood \u2013 could be\u00a0summed up as follows:<\/p>\n

(1)\u00a0\u00a0Relief that Pakatan Rakyat had not broken up as a result of the prolonged Selangor Mentri Besar crisis as there is general consensus that Pakatan Rakyat drawing support from all races, religions and regions in the country is the best hope and vehicle to complete the unfinished work of the 13th<\/sup>\u00a0General Elections to end the unbroken one-coalition government in Malaysia since Merdeka in 1957, as the change of Federal government in Putrajaya is the precondition for fundamental political changes to end the rampant corruption, abuses of power and the absence of good governance, accountability and transparency in the country.<\/p>\n

(2)\u00a0\u00a0Grave and growing doubts about the viability and sustainability of Pakatan Rakyat because of the degree of \u00a0commitment of component parties \u00a0to set aside their differences and to give topmost priority to the PR common policy goals, \u00a0platforms, \u00a0principles and objectives.<\/p>\n

Pakatan Rakyat leaders all over the country and at all levels should not delude ourselves into thinking that PR had not emerged unscathed from the prolonged Selangor Mentri Besar crisis which had gravely undermined the great trust and confidence which people from different races, religions and regions have placed on PR, which resulted in the PR winning a majority of 52 per cent of the national electorate in the 13GE last May, relegating the Umno\/Barisan Nasional to a minority government with 47% of the national vote.<\/p>\n

\"Pakatan<\/a>For this reason, the Pakatan Rakyat leadership must meet urgently and frequently to map out and implement strategies to restore public confidence in the coalition badly damaged by the prolonged Selangor MB crisis.<\/p>\n

There is however one silver lining in the worst crisis faced by the Pakatan Rakyat in it six-year history – the Selangor MB crisis has highlighted the great and even fundamental difference between the Pakatan Rakyat \u00a0and the Barisan Nasional.<\/p>\n

Pakatan Rakyat is a coalition of equals, as every component party in PR has an equal say in the future direction of the coalition \u2013 and any difference or disagreement will have to be resolved or thrashed out with a great deal of patience and\u00a0 stamina.<\/p>\n

If the three component parties cannot resolve their important differences in the PR, it will mark the immediate end of the PR coalition.<\/p>\n

UMNO\/BN purveyors of \u00a0falsehoods have tried their utmost in the in the past six years \u00a0to defame PR leaders through their controlled mass media and recently the \u00a0social media in the Internet to spread the lies that DAP, PKR and PAS leaders are not free agents and honest political leaders but political rogues and rascals, as disseminating the message to the Chinese ground that DAP leaders are puppets and stooges of \u00a0PAS while the Malay ground is poisoned with the lies that PAS leaders are DAP puppets and stooges.<\/p>\n

DAP leaders are not stooges of PAS and PAS leaders are not puppets of DAP \u2013 similarly, PKR are not stooges or puppets of DAP or PAS.<\/p>\n

We in the DAP, PAS and PKR are not in politics for profit or self-gain but \u00a0because of our political principles and convictions, for which many of us had paid a heavy personal price, unlike the Umno\/Barisan Nasional leaders and politicians.<\/p>\n

This is why PR coalition is completely different from \u00a0the Barisan Nasional coalition model.<\/p>\n

PR is a coalition of equal parties while BN is only a coalition in name to hide the fa\u00e7ade of the one-party UMNO dominance or hegemony, as the UMNO fiat is the law in Barisan Nasional. All the other 13 BN component parties, whether MCA, Gerakan or MIC, \u00a0cannot and would not dare to oppose if UMNO puts its foot down on what should be BN policy.<\/p>\n

The people in the three temple functions in Gelang Patah last night, just like their counterparts in the nation, were \u00a0also keenly interested in the latest Mahathir move \u2013 his open \u201cwar\u201d against Datuk Seri Najib Raza declaring in his blog that he was withdrawing support for the present Prime Minister as Najib is even worse than Pak Lah.<\/p>\n

What was most intriguing were \u00a0the two children\u2019s stories which Mahathir related in his blog to show his utter contempt for Najib \u2013 first, the Hans Christian Anderson\u2019s tale of \u201cThe Emperor with No Clothes\u201d\u00a0of a king who was so into himself that \u00a0he could not see his own failings and his courtier yes-men who only say what the king wants to hear even though it\u2019s obviously untrue; and secondly \u00a0of King Canute and the tides about a king who believed that he was so powerful that his command could hold back the tide.<\/p>\n

It is most strange and even bizarre \u00a0that we have the \u00a0sitting sixth Prime Minister who is accused by his mentor and the fourth Prime Minister \u2013 and \u00a0longest-serving 22-year Prime Minister – \u00a0as an \u201cEmperor with No Clothes\u201d and \u201cCanute\u201d who thinks he could command the tides.<\/p>\n

Pak Lah, the former fifth Prime Minister Malaysia, must be the happiest man in Malaysia after reading Mahathir\u2019s latest blog \u2013 to find that he was not that bad after all! -The Rocket<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Lim Kit Siang In the \u00a0three temple functions I attended\u00a0 in Lima Kedai and \u00a0Taman Sri Skudai in Gelang Patah last night, members of the public showed great and \u00a0keen interest and concern about political developments in the country, especially about the future of Pakatan Rakyat as a result of the prolonged Selangor Mentri […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9906,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9979"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9981,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9979\/revisions\/9981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.therocket.com.my\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}